


silently, they land

by SilvCyanide



Series: Daffodils and Gladioluses [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, POV Second Person, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 12:23:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9234842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilvCyanide/pseuds/SilvCyanide
Summary: The Hanahaki Disease is an illness born from unrequited love, where the patient throws up flower petals when they suffer from unrequited love. The infection can be removed through surgery, but the feelings disappear along with the flowers.Your throat tickles for the rest of the day, growing worse in intensity, and it is not until you've showered and are lounging on your bed that you feel the urge to cough. You cough harshly, feeling something rising up your throat but leaving it relatively clear, and you see a flash of purple plop onto your lap.It is a beautiful, whole, gladiolus.Companion fic to 'softly, they fall'





	

You stand outside the school gates, talking amiably with the girls that huddle around you, muted blushes on their cheeks as they shyly pass boxes and bags of chocolates to you. From the corner of your eye, you see Iwaizumi with a mildly impatient look on his face, hands shoved in his pockets as he waits for you to be done and your heart clenches.

It is Valentine's Day, and you would be lying if you said that you didn't wish for your Iwa-chan to give you chocolates too, but you are Oikawa Tooru and he is Iwaizumi Hajime, and in this society it is frowned upon to love another male as more than a friend, so you shove those feelings deep in your heart and plaster a bright smile on your face.

Iwaizumi suddenly coughs harshly into his hands, and your words stutter as you feel a flash of worry for him. Lately, Iwa-chan has looked rather lethargic, his face a shade paler than usual and you worry that he's coming down with something. Just as you're about to continue with the story you're telling about your family's dog - the girls wanted to hear it, for some reason - Iwaizumi comes up to you and begins dragging you off in the direction of the school gym, saying something about practice that mostly fly over your head with how you're occupied with the almost searing heat of his fingers wrapped around your arm.

You put up token resistance but for the most part you allow yourself to be pulled along, stumbling slightly when Iwaizumi moves just a bit too fast. A few small bags of chocolates fall on the ground and you don't bother picking them up.

He lets go when the gym doors are in sight and as he growls at you to hurry up, tacking on that insulting nickname at the back. Your footsteps slow and you stare forlornly at his retreating back for a few seconds before you school your features into a pout and rush after him with a whine rising from your throat.

When you walk past the dustbin outside the club room, you see a box of chocolates and a yellow flower dumped at the very bottom, and you wonder which poor sop is also suffering from unrequited love. You wish them a fast recovery anyways and hope that their love life will go better than yours.

* * *

 

Today, you are sitting at Iwaizumi's table with Makki and Mattsun, and it's currently lunch time. Iwaizumi hasn't been looking all too well recently and you're growing increasingly worried about him, but all he's done is brush off your concerns, citing that he's just caught a cold, and it hurts that your best friend can't trust you enough to tell you what's wrong.

In the middle of eating, a girl calls you out to the hallway, and you sigh inwardly, able to guess by her red face that it's another confession. You follow her out anyways, and listens with half an ear as she professes her love for you in a stuttering voice. The other half of your attention is focused on Iwa-chan, seeing what sort of reaction he has. To your disappointment, there's absolutely no reaction whatsoever, and Iwaizumi looks as if he hasn't heard a word, calmly eating his bento, when you know for a fact that your table is within earshot of this conversation. On a whim to see if Iwaizumi will finally respond, you accept her confession and chuckles as she trips over her words with scarlet cheeks, before she too starts giggling. She's cute, but not really your type, and you're already wondering how to make her break up with you.

Iwaizumi abruptly stands, and you inwardly rejoice at having elicited a jealous reaction, but Iwaizumi merely brushes past you, running down the halls as if the devil himself was on his heels and ignoring you calling out his name. Beside you, your new girlfriend looks mildly disgruntled that you so easily broke off a conversation with her to call out to your best friend. You can't find it in you to be too apologetic.

Iwa-chan doesn't return until lunch is over, looking far paler than before, and your girlfriend has already gone back to her classroom. When asked if he's alright, Iwaizumi repeats the exact same answer as the previous few times you've questioned him, and you know it's going nowhere so you drop it. Iwaizumi has that stubborn look in his eyes that says he's not going to be divulging any information today.

Your throat tickles for the rest of the day, growing worse in intensity, and it is not until you've showered and are lounging on your bed that you feel the urge to cough. You cough harshly, feeling something rising up your throat but leaving it relatively clear, and you see a flash of purple plop onto your lap.

It is a beautiful, whole, gladiolus.

* * *

 

You booked an appointment with the doctor the other day, a reputable one named Shinomiya Yoichi, and it's fifteen minutes to your appointment. You walk down the street from your house, weave through a few narrow side-streets and turn round the corner, the clinic within sight, with five minutes to spare. A familiar back is walking away from you, something small and white in his hand, and you want to call out to Iwaizumi since you've barely even seen him that weekend, but you're almost late and you'd rather not risk it, so you tell yourself that you can always talk to him later and pull open the door to the small but packed clinic.

Luckily you had already booked that appointment, so you don't have to wait, and you're shown directly to the doctor's office, where he is browsing through a manila folder. He snaps it shut as you enter, but you can spot a few words scribbled on the topmost piece of paper inside. You wonder who is that person in the folder who also has Hanahaki, but the doctor tells you to sit and tell him why you're here today, so you give him your fullest attention and push thoughts of the folder to the back of your mind.

The doctor listens to you with a frown, but doesn't comment until you finish speaking. He stares at you with a pensive look, and you squirm uncomfortably under the gaze.

He tells you to quickly get surgery before it's too late, and it sounds rather rehearsed, like he's had to say it before, but you decline to schedule an appointment with the local hospital to get the surgery done, and say you'd like to try something first.

As you exit the room to wait for the nurse to call your name so you can pick up the pills, you think you hear Dr. Shinomiya mutter something about so many teenagers being too bull-headed and not wanting to take the best option for them, but you can't be sure.

You leave with a pack of white pills in your hand, to try and suppress the flowers for as long as possible.

* * *

 

You're excited today, because after some cajoling, Iwa-chan has agreed to have a movie marathon. It's been a tiring few weeks and you're glad to have the chance to curl up against your best friend and relax. Along with the volleyball practices and midterm examinations, you've begun coughing up multiple flowers, waking up nearly covered in gladioli is also no new thing anymore. You've taken to shovelling them into a plastic bag and hiding them under your bed until you can get the opportunity to throw them away since your mother nearly discovered them when the toilet clogged up after you tried flushing a few too many down the pipes. It's keeping you on edge constantly since you're afraid that someone will discover them, and the exhaustion from life in general has started showing on your face. Iwa-chan nags you to take better care of yourself, but you find it hypocritical that he's saying such things, since he doesn't seem to be recovering at all since he started falling sick.

Iwaizumi brings popcorn and you dig up some chips from the depths of the kitchen cabinet, carrying them upstairs with two glasses and a bottle of soda. The snacks are set on the ground, and you pull the blanket off your bed as Iwaizumi settles himself on the ground, leaning on the low desk you have up against the wall, eyes trained on the screen as the opening credits for Star Wars play out.

You plop down beside him, resting your head on his lap and pulling the blanket to cover the both of you. His hand settles on your hair, almost instinctively, and you smile to yourself how Iwa-chan doesn't even seem to notice what he's doing.

Halfway through the movie, however, your throat begins to itch, and the taste of petals spread through your mouth. You scramble upright, snatching the remote from the table and pausing the movie before bolting out the door, calling out, "Be right back!" to Iwaizumi as he stares at you in confusion and surprise.

You barely make it to the toilet, slamming the door shut and locking it with shaky fingers before the flowers come up and out, scattering across the tiled floor. Five pristine gladioli lay on the ground, coloured in pink, purple and yellow. You gather them in your hands and toss them into the toilet bowl one at a time, flushing after each one. They're less likely to get stuck this way. Your face is covered in a sheen of sweat, and your chest feels clogged, the plant that's grown roots in your lungs hindering your breathing.

You wash your face at the sink, rinsing away the sweat and don't bother drying it as you unlock the door and return to your room. A rustling in your room catches your interest and your blood goes cold as you see what is causing the sound.

Iwaizumi is crouched by your bed, and you're about to call out a teasing remark at the deer-caught-in-headlights look he has on when you notice what he has in his hands. It is the plastic bag full of gladioli, opened and displaying its contents for all to see, and you tense up momentarily as you wrack your brain to try and explain why you would have a bag of flowers randomly stuffed under your bed.

(You also curse yourself because you must not have hidden it properly if Iwaizumi so easily finds it.)

You eventually laugh it off as one of your fangirls gifting you too many blossoms in a overly enthusiastic confession and you forgetting to toss them out, but the chuckle that punctuates the sentence gets stuck in your throat and comes out sounding utterly fake.

Iwaizumi sends you a sceptical look but doesn't push it and instead presses a button to continue the movie. You heave a silent sigh of relief and settle down beside him, glad that the topic is dropped.

* * *

 

It's almost Iwaizumi's birthday, there's only one week left and you've already prepared his birthday present. It's a small cactus with a silky aqua ribbon tied around its pot, and you think it suits Iwa-chan very well. However, you're very worried about Iwaizumi.

Iwaizumi has looked more and more frail recently, and his face is paper-white, eyebags under his eyes lending a fragility to his person. It's obviously not a simple cold as he keeps claiming, and it's immensely frustrating when he keeps brushing you off, giving flimsy excuses that you have no choice but to accept because you're afraid pursuing the matter further will make him more stressed which will in turn just make him more sick.

This morning, you're having a pleasant chat with Iwaizumi on the phone, whining to him about how your girlfriend just broke up with you and he's replying with non-committal grunts just like he always does. You're saying something that you don't really even know what about when Iwaizumi suddenly splutters something out that you couldn't quite catch and the only answer to your question of what's wrong is the beep of the dial tone.

You stare at your phone anxiously, Iwaizumi not answering your calls. Maybe he's found out that you didn't really love your girlfriend and doesn't want to be your friend anymore (okay so that's unlikely to happen but your friends call you dramatic for a reason) and that she broke up with you because she couldn't stand your cold attitude towards her. Yumi-chan did say something about you paying more attention to Iwa-chan than to her.

Your phone buzzes, and you unlock the phone to see a message from Iwaizumi. The message relays that he's fine, just that something unexpected came up, and that he asks you if you want to get ramen for lunch. You reply an affirmative and toss your phone to the side, flopping back onto the bed. You wonder what's going on with Iwaizumi though.

* * *

 

Today, Iwa-chan didn't come to school. You waited outside his house for fifteen minutes but he didn't come out. Nobody answered the door either when you knocked. In fact, it almost seemed as if the house was way too quiet, like nobody's there. Earlier there was the faint sound of sirens from the direction of Iwaizumi's house, and you wonder what's going on today that so much is happening so early in the morning.

It's boring at school, and Iwa-chan's seat to the right of you is glaringly empty. You slog through the day, not really paying attention to the lessons, and Makki and Mattsun must have noticed something off about you, because they don't bother you as much today. Finally though, the school bell rings and you shoulder your bag as you head home, not even bothering to go to practice today since Iwa-chan's not there. It's not like the third years even need to go to practice anymore since they've retired.

You reach home fairly quickly, but as you step into the doorway and announce you're home, you can instantly feel that something's not right. Your mother is sitting at the dining table, house phone beside her and sobbing slightly. Alarmed, you rush over to her side, but when she looks up at you with red-rimmed eyes, the first thing she says to you has you reeling in horror and disbelief.

"Oh, Tooru, Hajime's in the hospital right now. They say he has Hanahaki and it's too severe for any cure. He's not going to make it."

It must be a joke, you think, because Iwaizumi has always been so strong, there's no way he's dying right now. But your mother has never been one for jokes, and she looks too saddened for it to be a distasteful prank. Suddenly, you can't feel your legs, and you collapse into a chair in shock.

You need to go see him.

You get the hospital name from your mum, who tells you to go ahead first, and hail a taxi from the main road, hoping that you aren't too late even as you urge the taxi driver to go faster.

The reception desk is miraculously rather empty, and you ask for his room number, heart almost bursting from your chest with how anxious you currently feel.

As you speed down the hallway as fast as you're allowed to go, you pray to yourself to be there in time, the door to his room coming into sight.

But, the world is cruel and cold sometimes, and as you push open the door, you hear Iwaizumi's mother cry loudly as a long beep echoes through the room, and your searching eyes land on the heart monitor, where a single flat line is displayed.

Iwaizumi is dead.

You don't really know what expression you have on at the moment, but it's probably bad enough if Iwaizumi's father silently moves to the side to let you through to his bed, tears trickling down his cheeks.

Iwaizumi looks like he's sleeping, and his face is peaceful, but it's oh, so pale, and when you touch his hand, you don't feel a pulse jumping in his wrist. A sob wracks your body and you cry into the bedsheets, and you can feel flowers coming up your throat. They are accompanied by a stabbing pain, and Iwaizumi's parents look horrified when you cough up bloodied gladioli, the expression in their eyes seeming to say, 'please, not you too'.

Blood stains your lips and soaks into the white sheets, and you're pretty sure that Iwaizumi will never have loved you, if he loves someone so much that he's willing to die rather than remove the feelings. It's too late for you as well, if there's blood with the blossoms, and you're infinitely sorry to your parents that you aren't able to be a filial child and support them in their old age.

You don't remember what happened after that.

* * *

 

Iwaizumi's funeral is a gloomy and somber affair, and you hate it.

It shouldn't be this muted when Iwaizumi was such a bright and loud person in life, and you clench your hands into fists as you stare blankly at the funeral procession.

Finally the coffin is lowered into the ground, and dirt is shovelled on top of it, until all that's there is a marble headstone behind a mound of freshly packed dirt, covering a coffin in which your best friend sleeps eternally.

Many familiar faces are present, and you think you saw Kageyama somewhere. The whole time, the taste of petals and blood stains your tongue.

Eventually, everybody leaves, and your parents cast you unreadable looks as you remain standing in front of the headstone, but they stay silent a distance away. You stare at the embossed slab, the few sentences carved onto its surface not even close to doing justice to the person Iwaizumi was. A petal slips past your lips and you cough wetly, blood bubbling up your throat and coating the petals of the gladiolus before it plops onto the marble. You hear a sob from your mother, and turn around and leave, not bothering to pick up the flower that lies quietly on the headstone.

A month later another headstone joins Iwaizumi's.

 

**Author's Note:**

> _Flower meanings:_
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _Gladiolus - Strength of character, Love at first sight, Generosity_


End file.
